Just minutes into sudden death overtime, Joe Kruy ’12 netted the game winning goal this Wednesday in an exhilarating victory against Brewster. He scored a goal early in the 4th quarter that provided a spark for Andover and brought the team within one. Brewster responded with a goal of its own with five minutes left in the game. Andover would not give up easily, however, as Kruy scored another goal with a minute and a half left to bring the team back to within one. Andover won the ensuing faceoff and McKenna got the ball at the point. As time was running down, McKenna ripped a shot past the goalie with eight seconds remaining to send the game into sudden death OT. Kruy did not waste any time to seal the deal for Andover, and put in the game winner a few minutes later. Andover started the game very sloppily as the team did not keep possession, and struggled on the defensive end for most of the first quarter. Brewster struck first and struck hard, with three unanswered goals, including a behind the head flick into the top of the net. Andover picked up the energy level towards the end of the quarter as C0-Captain John McKenna ’10 scored an impressive goal with ten seconds remaining in the quarter. Andover continued its high energy play on both ends in the second quarter. Possession went back and forth, and a few Brewster possessions were stopped by great saves by goalie Jay Dolan ’11. With four minutes left in the half, Will Walker ’11 scored a goal on a tremendous diving effort from behind the net. That would be the only goal of the quarter for either team. Coming out of the half, Andover started off sluggishly like it did in the first half, especially defensively which translated into two straight goals by Brewster. Andover responded quickly though, as 40 seconds later Walker put in his second goal of the day on a great cut towards the net with a minute left in the quarter. From that point on, Kruy dominated the game. Andover earned a hard-fought 7-6 victory. “We’ve really come together as one whole unit, the players are starting to bond with one another in the locker room. Also as a team we’ve really started communicating better on both offense and defense,” said Dolan. This game followed an 8-2 victory over Tilton over the weekend. Andover controlled the tempo for most of the game and completely outmatched Tilton. Andy Vailas ‘10 provided a highlight-reel play when he dodged two defenders from the top and sniped the top shelf for the team’s first goal. “We continued to improve on offense in terms of possession. We had longer possessions and often were able to take a few possession shots to keep the Tilton defense on its toes, but we still need to work on just having more fluidity with the ball,” said Dolan. Andover will face Holderness on Wednesday.
